Tag Archives: secret millionaire

I feel like I’ve been totally out of touch this week! I’m recovering from acute bronchitis, it’s been a while since I’ve felt that bad! I didn’t check Facebook or Email, only went somewhere if it was absolutely necessary (doctor, pharmacy, school). I still feel like I’m coughing up a lung, but I’m pretty sure I’m not dying! I couldn’t say that for certain on Monday!

I hope everyone had a good weekend, I know that a holiday weekend can be a wonderful family time, and it can also be a time of bittersweet memories. Thankfully, I still have my mom, mother-in-law and grandmothers. I know it won’t be that way forever, and I’m very fortunate to have them. This past week we traveled to GA where one of our daughters and son-in-law are stationed, and spent time with them and our darling grand-daughter for Mother’s Day.

I wrote my Mailbox Monday and Teaser Tuesday posts before we left town, so I was able to simply post them, but haven’t felt like doing much of anything since, compliments of the bronchitis. Today I’m up and around, and the housework is calling my name.

I’ve come across some interesting things online lately, and thought I’d share a couple of them.

Here’s a neat article about book art at the WebUrbanist website. See some of the artwork below:

The art on the top left as well as the bottom left is done by Su Blackwell, top center and right is done by Thomas Allen, and the bottom right is a piece I haven’t been able to credit yet. Another artist whose work I really like is Brian Dettmer’s.

While I am too attached to books to use them even for the most beautiful art, I love these pieces. Their websites show a lot of other pieces they’ve done – just amazing! I love that books are such a fascinating medium. There are so many old books that no one seems to want that are stored, or left behind, it wonderful that they can be used for something so lovely. I’ve seen a lot of book crafts on Pinterest, and again, while they are lovely, I’m not sure I could cut up books. I grew up with a great respect for books, no matter their age. My mother wouldn’t allow us to turn down the corner to mark our place (which is why I use almost any random thing as a bookmark), lay the books facedown while open, mark in them, or do anything else that might make them less than pristine. I had a hard time writing or highlighting in my textbooks, thanks to her!

Here’s a news tidbit that made me cringe, considering we spent a couple of days last week on the road and eating fast food – “Teen Finds Finger in Arby’s Sandwich”. I’m not a fan of fast food normally, but then when you read about stuff like this it makes me positively nauseous.

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I have a few TV shows that I really like, I DVR them, then on a weekend, or unexpected downtime I watch them sans commercials. I came across a list of the shows cancelled in or after the 2011-2012 season. Some of my favorites are being cancelled – USA cancelled “In Plain Sight”, TNT cancelled “The Closer”, NBC cancelled “Harry’s Law”, FOX cancelled “Terra Nova” and “Alcatraz”, CBS cancelled “CSI Miami”, and ABC cancelled “Combat Hospital”, “Expedition Impossible”, and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”. There is a show that’s coming back that I’m excited about is ABC’s “Secret Millionaire”.

As the thirteenth book in the Stephanie Plum series, if you know Stephanie from previous books (or the One For The Money movie), you have a general idea about how this book goes. Stephanie just wants to do her job. Her job gets complicated. She gets in over her head. Ranger & Morelli work together to rescue her. And, as always – it’s funny.

Stephanie was a lingerie buyer for a local department store, and when she got laid off she blackmailed her cousin, Vinnie, into giving her a job as a BEA (Bond Enforcement Agent) chasing down skips or FTA’s (Failure to Appear). She has no training or experience, and another bounty hunter, Ranger, (ex-special forces military, who is totally hot and invests in stocks and real estate) mentors her, and adds an interesting triangle to her on-again off-again relationship with Joe Morelli, plain clothes detective who took her virginity behind a canolli case years before. Other characters: Lulu is an ex-hooker who was beaten almost to death, and changed her career path to file clerk at Vincent Plum’s Bail Bonds. Connie Risolli is Vinnie’s “guard dog” receptionist, and Grandma Mazur moved in with Stephanie’s mom and dad after her husband died, and drives Stephanie’s mother to drink.

The particulars of this book are that Ranger asks Stephanie to visit her ex-husband, Dickie Orr, and plant bugs in his office. Dickie is a lawyer, and the guy who, as the books say, cheated on her about 15 minutes after their marriage, and who she divorced about 15 minutes after that. When she goes to his office with her trusty sidekick’s, Lula and Connie, she sees a picture of Dickie with her mortal enemy, Joyce Barnhardt, and goes nuts. She assaults Dickie in front of multiple witnesses. The next day Dickie has disappeared, leaving only a trail of blood in his house. The general public consensus is that Stephanie picked up where she left off at the law office, and eliminated Dickie. With Joyce generating theories about Stephanie’s guilt and following her every move. With Dickie’s law partners dropping like flies, disappearing then turning up dead, is Dickie going to show up dead next? Stephanie has no alibi – will this be the shenanigan that puts her on the wrong side of the law?

While all of Janet Evanovich’s books are funny, I found this one less funny than most of them. I still enjoyed it, and am moving right on to Fearless Fourteen. So far I have rated this entire series as 4 out of 5 stars, but this one I rated 3 out of 5 stars.